Types of Licenses

The base license is required for all software instances deployed, as well as for all appliances. The base license enables you to use all the ACS functionality except license controlled features, and it enables standard centralized reporting features.

Required for each ACS instance, primary and secondary.

Required for all appliances.

Supports deployments with up to 500 network devices (AAA Clients).

The following are the types of base license:

Permanent—This license does not have an expiration date. Supports deployments with up to 500 network devices (AAA Clients).

Evaluation—Expires 90 days from the time the license is issued. Supports deployments with up to 50 managed devices.

The number of devices is determined by the number of unique IP addresses that you configure. This includes the subnet masks that you configure. For example, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 implies 256 unique IP addresses and hence the number of devices is 256.

Add-On Licenses

Add-on licenses can only be installed on an ACS server with permanent base license. A large deployment needs permanent base license to be installed.

Accessing the Web Interface

Logging In

When you log into the ACS web interface for the first time, you are prompted to install the license file.

To log into the ACS web interface:

Step 1 Enter the ACS URL in your browser.

For example, https://acs_host/acsadmin, https://[IPv6 address]/acsadmin, or https://ipv4 address/acsadmin, where /acs_host is the IP address or Domain Name System (DNS) hostname. The DNS hostname works for IPv6 when the given IP address is resolvable to both IPv4 and IPv6 formats.

The login page appears.

Note Launching the ACS web interface using IPv6 addresses is not supported in Mozilla Firefox version 4.x or later.

Step 2 In the Username field, enter ACSAdmin , which is the default username. The value is not case-sensitive.

Step 3 In the Password field, enter default , which is the default password. The value is case-sensitive.

Note Click Reset to clear the Username and Password fields and start over, if needed.

Step 4 Click Login or press Enter .

The login page reappears, prompting you to change your password.

Step 5 Enter default in the Old Password field, then enter a new password in the New Password and Confirm Password fields.

If you forget your username or password, use the acs reset-password command to reset your username to ACSAdmin and your password to default. You are prompted to change your password after a reset. See CLI Reference Guide for Cisco Secure Access Control System 5.4 for more information.

Logging Out

A dialog box appears, prompting you to confirm whether you want to log out of ACS.

Step 2 Click OK .

You are logged out.

Caution For security reasons, Cisco recommends that you log out of the ACS when you complete your administrative session. If you do not log out, the ACS web interface logs you out after 30 minutes of inactivity, and does not save any unsubmitted configuration data.